[mashshare]
(Originally published June 15, 2011.)

Some have asked why I write so often about my dad. It’s a fair question. My father and his legacy have crept into several of my novels and many of my columns. I suppose writing about my father shortens the distance between me and whatever heavenly project he’s working on today.

I don’t need a reason this week because like you, I have Father’s Day on my mind. It’s the holiday of misshapen pancakes served in bed, handmade cards and those stapled paper and crayon books full of coupons for free hugs and back scratches. The day and the gifts are a welcome reminder from my wife and children that I’m not doing quite as poorly as I generally think I am.

It’s become quite the balancing act. In one hand I hold the present day, my combined efforts to be the best husband and dad I can possibly be. In the other hand I hold firmly to the past, to the memories of a father who loved and lived more in his short life than I could in a Methuselah-sized lifetime.

Lately I’ve been traveling more than usual to church meetings and services outside my small hometown. I’ve taken most of these trips alone as my wife has her own Sunday responsibilities and my children have church friends and routines important to them, too. As I ponder Father’s Day, I can almost see myself switching seats and riding alongside my dad.

In the final years of my father’s life, he served in a church leadership position that required regular meetings in another town. During that time he drove every Wednesday night over the mountain from Charlottesville to a chapel in Waynesboro, Va. for these administrative and leadership meetings. He left home immediately after an early dinner and returned as late as midnight.

I remember the first time my dad asked me if I wanted to ride along. I knew it was a 35-minute drive and that I’d be doing homework, playing basketball or likely walking to the nearby Kmart alone. But I also knew that for half an hour each way I would ride alone with my dad.

I didn’t have to think long to say yes.

On those trips to the church in Waynesboro, I learned about life and flying, politics and government, God and family. As expected, during Dad’s meetings, I was often left to fend for myself. I read a book, did homework assignments, pretended to do others and memorized the toy aisle at that nearby Kmart. Hours later he would find me practicing free throws in the church’s gymnasium or playing the only song I knew on the piano: the “Star Wars” theme song.

Before rolling out of town, we always stopped at a 7-Eleven near the freeway for a soda and a late-night snack. Then dad drove us home, and on some nights I dozed off before we hit our driveway and I missed those precious miles at his side.

I regret the nights I dozed off.

Like most of you, I have many fond memories of my father. Our family lived and traveled extensively through Europe. There were vacations to theme parks and beaches, cross-country U.S. road trips in a station wagon never designed to hold six people and two dogs, and afternoons in Chicago when my father flew us around in a small plane high above Lake Michigan.

As I celebrate yet another Father’s Day, as I struggle to juggle the past and present, many of my sweetest memories are those at his side driving to and from weekly meetings that I never once attended.

I wish I’d known then what I know now.

I wish I’d understood that he wasn’t just driving me home, he was driving me Home.

I also wish he’d been able to drive the whole way.

Today I am left with memories and slides, journals and scrapbooks, and a deep desire to be half the dad to my kids that my dad was to his.

No, I can’t promise I can drive them all the way Home, but I can promise to put them in the car with me as often as possible.